Despite tough challenges in fragile countries, World Bank analysis reveals glimmers of hopeWASHINGTON, May 1, 2013—Despite enduring political and economic challenges, 20 fragile and conflict-affected ... Show More +states have recently met one or more targets under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and an additional six countries are on track to meet individual targets ahead of the 2015 deadline, according to a new analysis by the World Bank Group released today. The figures stand in stark contrast to only two years ago, when the 2011 World Development Report on Conflict, Security and Development reported that no low-income fragile or conflict-affected country had achieved a Millennium Development Goal (MDG). The analysis was released today in a paper prepared for the “Fragility Forum” event held at the World Bank and comes as the Bank embarks on a series of internal reforms to leverage its effectiveness in fragile and conflict-affected states.“This should be a wake- up call to the global community not to dismiss these countries as lost causes,” said World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim. “These signs of progress do signal that development can and is being achieved, even amid fragility and violence. But the challenges ahead for many countries are extremely tough. While these successes offer hope, the reality is that far too many fragile and conflict-affected countries lag behind the rest of the world. We need to offer timely and critical support to improve the lives of people living in these fragile countries.” The analysis finds eight fragile and conflict affected states – including Guinea, Nepal, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Timor-Leste – have already met the goal to halve extreme poverty - the number of people living on less than $1.25 a day. Among fragile and conflict-affected states, the greatest progress has been on gender parity in education – the ratio of girls’ to boys’ enrollment in school. Countries including Kiribati, Micronesia, Myanmar, and Tuvalu have met the target, and those on track include Burundi, Chad, Republic of Congo, Timor-Leste, Nepal and Yemen.However, with less than 1,000 days to meet the MDGs deadline, and with only about 20 percent of fragile and conflict-affected countries now meeting the poverty target, the analysis says the majority of MDG goals in fragile states will not be met. The analysis, based on the Global Monitoring Report’s data, also points out progress can be reversed for countries relapsing into conflict. The signs of progress reflect accelerated development as well as better quality data and monitoring. However the analysis shows lack of data remains a challenge in many countries.“A fragile state does not mean a failed state, and we need to accelerate our efforts to replicate the progress we’ve seen and expand on what works,” said World Bank Managing Director Caroline Anstey. “We know what gets measured, gets done. So it’s vital we all continue our efforts to help countries build up their ability to collect data as they navigate the tough road ahead.” The analysis show six fragile and conflict-affected countries, including Nepal, Tuvalu, Comoros, Myanmar and Afghanistan, have already met the target on improved access to water. Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone are on track to achieve the target by 2015. Nepal stands out as the only fragile and conflict-affected state to have already reached the target on reducing maternal mortality. For women in Nepal, the chances of dying in childbirth have been cut in half since 1996. Other fragile and conflict affected states such as Afghanistan, Angola, Eritrea, Timor-Leste and the Republic of Yemen are on track to meet the MDG on maternal health, provided their current rate of progress continues. The 20 fragile and conflict affected countries which have met one or more targets are Afghanistan, Angola, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Comoros, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Iraq, Kiribati, Liberia, Libya, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Myanmar, Nepal, Sudan, Syria, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tuvalu, and West Bank and Gaza.Much of the Bank’s work in fragile and conflict-affected states is supported by IDA, the World Bank's fund for the poorest, which currently has an active portfolio of 190 projects in fragile and conflict-affected states. Since 2000, IDA has provided more than $22 billion in support for fragile and conflict-affected countries, including projects immunizing about 10 million children and delivering antenatal care to about 1.5 million women. To further the impact of IDA in fragile and conflict-affected states, the Bank’s reform measures include a sharper focus on dealing with the causes of conflict and fragility, and new policies to provide more flexible and faster support.Note: Based on analysis of data in the Global Monitoring Report 2013 and the World Bank’s Harmonised List of Fragile Situations FY13 Show Less -

WASHINGTON, April 15, 2013 – Economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is likely to reach more than 5 percent on average in 2013-2015 as a result of high commodity prices worldwide and strong consume... Show More +r spending on the continent, ensuring that the region remains amongst the fastest growing in the world -- according to the World Bank’s latest Africa’s Pulse, a twice-yearly analysis of the issues shaping Africa’s economic prospects. In 2012, about a quarter of African countries grew at 7 percent or higher and a number of African countries, notably Sierra Leone, Niger, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso and Rwanda, are among the fastest growing in the world. The new World Bank report forecasts that medium-term growth prospects remain strong and will be supported by a gradually improving world economy, consistently high commodity prices, and more investment in regional infrastructure, trade, and business growth. Welcoming the new assessment that Africa continues to grow faster than the global average, the World Bank’s Vice President called on the need for faster progress in areas such as electricity and food in the vulnerable areas of The Sahel and the Horn of Africa, and that significantly more energy and agricultural productivity were needed to raise the quality of life for Africans throughout the continent and reduce poverty significantly. “African countries will need to bring more electricity, nutritious food, jobs and opportunity to families and communities across the continent in order to better their lives, end extreme poverty, and promote shared prosperity,” said the World Bank’s Africa Vice President Makhtar Diop. “Without more electricity and higher agricultural productivity, Africa’s development future cannot prosper. The good news is that governments in Africa are intent on changing this.”Diop also urged African governments and their development partners to upgrade the continent’s statistical capacity so that citizens could better measure and monitor their development progress and analyze the reasons for its success and failure, especially in resource-rich countries and fragile states, where data gathering and analysis remained weak. New mineral discoveries drive growthAfrica’s Pulse says that recent discoveries of oil, natural gas, copper, and other strategic minerals, and the expansion of several mines or the building of new ones in Mozambique, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Zambia, together with better political and economic governance, were sustaining solid economic growth across the continent. Looking forward, it is expected that by 2020, only four or five countries in the region will not be involved in mineral exploitation of some kind, such is Africa’s abundance of natural resources.The World Bank says that given the considerable amounts of new mineral revenues coming on stream across the region, resource-rich African countries will consciously need to invest these new earnings in better health, education, and jobs, and less poverty for their people in order to maximize their national development prospects. Consumer spending and private investment upConsumer spending, which accounts for more than 60 percent of Africa’s GDP, remained strong in 2012. This trend was driven by declining inflation, which fell from 9.5 percent in January 2012 to 7.6 percent in December 2012; improved access to credit, for example in Angola, Ghana, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zambia; lower interest rates--for every interest rate hike there were three cuts; and a rebound in agricultural incomes, thanks to more favorable weather conditions in countries such as Guinea, Mauritania and Niger, which all experienced better rains compared with the 2010/2011 crop year; and the steady remittance inflows, which are estimated at $31 billion in 2012 and 2011. Increased investment flows are supporting the region’s growth performance. In 2012, for example, net private capital flows to the region increased by 3.3 percent to a record $54.5 billion; and foreign direct investment inflows to the region increased by 5.5 percent in 2012 to $37.7 billion.Africa’s Pulse notes that exports are also driving the continent’s growth and that the traditional destination of these goods over the last decade is changing as well. Since 2000, the overall growth of Sub-Saharan exports to emerging markets, including those of China, Brazil and India, and to countries in the region has surpassed that to developed markets. Total exports to Brazil, India and China were larger than to the EU market in 2011.Africa’s impressive growth has not reduced poverty enoughAfter more than a decade of strong economic growth, the World Bank says that Africa has been able to cut poverty on the continent, but not by enough.“While the broad picture emerging from the data is that Africa’s economies have been expanding robustly and that poverty is coming down, the aggregate hides a great deal of diversity in performance, even among Africa’s faster growers,” says Shanta Devarajan, the World Bank’s Chief Economist for Africa, and lead author of the new report.Devarajan adds that during the second half of the 2000s, Ethiopia and Rwanda saw their economies expand at 8-10 percent (or between 5 and 8 percent per capita), which resulted in a 1.3 to 1.7 percentage point yearly fall in their national poverty rates. In contrast, poverty reduction in some other countries has lagged far behind growth.Future offers prospects of more growth, much less poverty, and shared prosperity Africa’s Pulse suggests that a number of emerging trends on the continent could help to transform its current state of development over the coming years. These include the promise of large revenues from mineral exploitation, rising incomes created by a dramatic expansion of agricultural productivity, the large-scale migration of people from the countryside into Africa’s towns and cities, and a demographic dividend potentially created by Africa’s fast-growing population of young people. “If properly harnessed to unleash their full potential, these trends hold the promise of more growth, much less poverty, and accelerating shared prosperity for African countries in the foreseeable future,” says Punam Chuhan-Pole, a co-author of the Africa’s Pulse and a Lead Economist in the World Bank’s Africa region. Show Less -

IDA Credit: US$89.4 million equivalentTerms: Maturity = 40 years; Grace = 10 yearsProject ID: P094183Project Description: The objectives of the project are to increase the availability of improved agr... Show More +icultural technologies in participating countries in the Southern African Development Community region. Show Less -

WASHINGTON, March 8, 2013 – Despite the steady economic growth in many African countries over the last few years, gains have not always translated into greater gender equality or poverty reduction, th... Show More +e World Bank announced today. To mark International Women’s Day, the World Bank’s Africa region launched two evidence based initiatives to step up its commitment to improve gender programs in Africa. First is the Africa Gender Action Plan, a five year blueprint for the Bank’s gender informed activities. Next is the Gender Innovation Lab that will bring scientific solutions through rigorous impact evaluation that will transform how the World Bank will identify development solutions for some of its poorest clients. Combined, the World Bank Africa Gender Action Plan and Gender Innovation Lab will link scientific evidence to guide gender-related lending operations in Africa.“In the past decade, African countries have made some considerable strides when it comes to gender equality,” says Makhar Diop, World Bank Vice President for Africa. “Today, we have moved from an intuitive understanding of gender programs to add the Gender Innovation Lab that will fill the knowledge gap by providing more qualitative and quantitative evidence than ever about what works and what doesn’t in terms of gender equality in sub-Saharan Africa,” concludes Diop.On behalf of the World Bank, Diop said the new Gender Innovation Lab will provide development solutions to countries as it works to keep the momentum toward achieving gender equality in Africa.The World Bank’s Africa Gender Action Plan, the institution’s regional strategy for addressing gender inequality, will advance development for both men and women using the latest technological tools that provide evidence on the effectiveness of gender programs through its funding and operations.The Gender Innovation Lab, the first at the World Bank, brings science to improve delivery of its programs. The Lab already has over 20 impact evaluations under way, and they are providing clear evidence of what works. This week, The Gender Innovation Lab received financial support from the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) in the amount of USD$18 million.Partnering with DFID and the government of Rwanda, a Lab impact evaluation showed how land title registration resulted in women increasing investments in land, at twice the level as men. Working with BRAC and researchers at the London School of Economics, another Lab impact evaluation showed that a program that provided life skills and vocational training through adolescent girls’ clubs resulted in 30 percent lower fertility, a 30 percent increase in the likelihood of girls working, and a 75 percent lower chance that they had been forced to have sex again their will. These are powerful lessons that show not only what works, but the payoffs to making these kinds of investments. Post-2015 Goals Must Include Non-Traditional VoicesShifts in global influence from large emerging economies and the private sector are challenging the traditional development paradigm, experts note. Experts also explain that global private sector firms are seeking to modernize their business models to match profits with responsibility through their supply chains, suggesting a post-2015 world will need to include new voices to the development debate. Experts agree that chief among the new voices should be women from developing countries. “I am proud to be the first person from the South, the first African, the first woman to head such a respected organization like Oxfam International,” says Winnie Byanyima, UNDP Director of Gender and Development and Oxfam Executive Director Designate. “I’m stepping into a very powerful space, and I’m conscious of that. I hope to bring the voices of poor men and women from my continent Africa and from the developing world to the global stage,” concludes Byanyima. For sub-Saharan Africa, The Bank notes that gender must be mainstreamed into all future development programs. However, it must also be a global priority.Gender Programs Are a Global PriorityGlobally, the World Bank is making financing available for gender equality by strengthening its monitoring and tracking systems, and by setting gender-related targets through the Bank’s corporate scorecard and in other ways.In 2012, for the first time in the series history, the World Bank’s World Development Report focused exclusively on gender equality and development."And it was about time,” says Caroline Anstey, World Bank Managing Director. “We know that equal opportunity, regardless of sex, is not only the right thing to do; it is also smart economics,” concludes Anstey.Underinvesting in women puts a brake on poverty reduction as, amongst other things, women usually reinvest a much higher portion of their earnings into their families and communities, compared to men," she adds.For its part, The World Bank is committing to funding more gender-related projects, to monitoring results more closely, and to making sure that more and more projects consider gender in their design, even if they do not have an explicit gender focus.In fiscal year 2012 alone, just over US$29 billion, or 83 percent of the World Bank's overall lending and grants, were allocated to gender-informed operations in education, health, access to land, financial and agricultural services, jobs, and infrastructure. Part of the reason for this is that, together with our partners, we made gender a Special Theme of the International Development Association (IDA), which provides close to $50 billion in credits and grants to the poorest countries between 2011 and 2014—many of which are in Africa.NOTE TO EDITORS:The UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) has a number of programmes to support gender programs in sub-Saharan Africa. On March 4, 2018, DFID committed up to £11.5 million (USD$18 million) to a new partnership with the World Bank, for a ‘Gender Innovation Lab’ on girls and women’s economic empowerment, testing what works in terms of giving girls and women control over their economic lives in sub-Saharan Africa. This evidence base isn’t just going to help DFID but also other governments, donors and NGOs. Show Less -

WASHINGTON, March 4, 2013 - Africa’s farmers and agribusinesses could create a trillion-dollar food market by 2030 if they can expand their access to more capital, electricity, better technology and i... Show More +rrigated land to grow high-value nutritious foods, and if African governments can work more closely with agribusinesses to feed the region’s fast-growing urban population, according to a new World Bank report launched today. According to the Growing Africa: Unlocking the Potential of Agribusiness report, Africa’s food systems, currently valued at US$313 billion a year from agriculture, could triple if governments and business leaders radically rethink their policies and support to agriculture, farmers, and agribusinesses, which together account for nearly 50 percent of Africa’s economic activity.“The time has come for making African agriculture and agribusiness a catalyst for ending poverty,” says Makhtar Diop, World Bank Vice President for Africa Region. “We cannot overstate the importance of agriculture to Africa’s determination to maintain and boost its high growth rates, create more jobs, significantly reduce poverty, and grow enough cheap, nutritious food to feed its families, export its surplus crops, while safeguarding the continent’s environment.” Agribusiness: strong growth opportunitiesDue to a combination of population growth, rising incomes and urbanization, strong demand is driving global food and agricultural prices higher. Supply issues – slowing yield growth of major food crops, slowdown in research spending, land degradation and water scarcity issues, and a changing climate all mean that prices will remain high. In this new market climate, Africa has great potential for expanding its food and agricultural exports.Africa holds almost 50 percent of the world’s uncultivated land which is suited for growing food crops, comprising as many as 450 million hectares that are not forested, protected, or densely populated. Africa uses less than 2 percent of its renewable water sources, compared to a world average of five percent. Its harvests routinely yield far less than their potential and, for mainstay food crops such as maize the yield gap is as wide as 60 to 80 percent. Post-harvest losses run 15 to 20 percent for cereals and are higher for perishable products due to poor storage and other farm infrastructure. African countries can tap into booming markets in rice, maize, soybeans, sugar, palm oil, biofuel and feedstock and emerge as major exporters of these commodities on world markets similar to the successes scored by Latin America and Southeast Asia. For Sub-Saharan Africa, the most dynamic sectors are likely to be rice, feed grains, poultry, dairy, vegetable oils, horticulture and processed foods to supply domestic markets. The report cautions that even as land will be needed for some agribusiness investments, such acquisitions can threaten people’s livelihoods and create local opposition unless land purchases or leases are conducted according to ethical and socially responsible standards, including recognizing local users’ rights, thorough consultations with local communities, and fair market-rate compensation for land acquired. “Improving Africa’s agriculture and agribusiness sectors means higher incomes and more jobs. It also allows Africa to compete globally. Today, Brazil, Indonesia and Thailand each export more food products than all of sub-Saharan Africa combined. This must change,” says Jamal Saghir, World Bank Director for Sustainable Development in the Africa Region.Value Chains are essential Rice: Africa has become a major consumer and importer of rice, and Africans import half the rice they eat and pay top dollar for it, $3.5 billion per year and more. Ghana and Senegal are significant importers. Senegal is competitive among its neighbors, but it is held back by the difficulty farmers have in accessing land, capital, finance for irrigation expansion and appropriate crop varieties. Ghana produces fewer varieties of rice than Senegal, but at significantly higher cost, and levies 40 percent tariffs and other charges on imports. Poor grain quality, cleanliness and packaging are major deterrents for consumers constraining the sector’s performance.Maize: A food staple for many Africans, maize is grown on 25 million hectares or 14 percent of cropped land. In Zambia where people eat on average 133 kilograms of cereals a year, maize provides half the calories in their diets. Zambia is competitive when importing maize but fails on exports. High transport costs, higher labor costs and lower yields combine to increase costs by one-third compared to Thailand, a major international producer of rain-fed maize. The report argues that Zambia’s future competitiveness depends on raising yields, reducing costs, and removing disincentives for the private sector in markets and trade.In addition, the study reviewed value chains for cocoa in Ghana and dairy and green beans in Kenya.“African farmers and businesses must be empowered through good policies, increased public and private investments and strong public-private partnerships,” says Gaiv Tata, World Bank Director for Financial and Private Sector Development in Africa. “A strong agribusiness sector is vital for Africa's economic future.” SolutionsAgriculture and agribusiness should be at the top of the development and business agenda in Sub-Saharan Africa. The report calls for strong leadership and commitment for both public and private sectors. As comparators, the report cites case studies from Uruguay, Indonesia and Malaysia. For success, engaging with strategic “good practice” investors is critical, as is the strengthening of safeguards, land administration systems, and screening investments for sustainable growth. The report notes that Africa can also draw on many local successes to guide governments and investors toward positive economic, social and environmental outcomes. Show Less -

In a village in Tanzania, for example, women are now making clay pots and growing vegetables to sell at market. The work is generating income, but within the community, it is viewed as an extension of... Show More + women’s domestic duties and not as a breadwinner role.Almost everywhere, the focus groups described men remaining the primary income earners and decision makers, and the allocation of free time, responsibilities, and power being unequally distributed. Nearly one-third of the groups said domestic violence was common and reinforced gender norms.“Norms are changing, but the change is slow and incremental, and its pace does not always keep up with economic opportunities and development. As a result, women, as well as men, get excluded from opportunities perceived as gender-inappropriate,” said Carrie Turk, a World Bank gender specialist and co-author of the report. "Development programs can help alleviate these constraints, since change needs to happen on all levels to take effect: on individual, household and community levels."Lessons for development“The development community needs to think about where it is financing gender-sensitive projects,” said study co-author Maria Beatriz Orlando, a social development specialist at the World Bank. “In the `90s, a lot of women’s development work focused on traditional gender roles – a lot of the projects were in crafts or in food. We have to question how much jam can be produced.”“While respecting culture, we can also challenge these norms for the benefit of both women and men,” added Ana Maria Munoz,a co-author of the report, also co-authored by Patti Petesch and Maria Angelica Thumala.Creating gender-neutral learning opportunities could also open more doors for future generations of both sexes, the authors write. Education and laws that help reduce domestic abuse can also increase empowerment and opportunities for women.Laws and regulations promoting gender equality can promote change, but they must be well publicized and enforced. The study found that outreach and public understanding were uneven among the focus groups, particularly in rural communities. “In none of the sample countries did we find either men or women to be really well-informed of their rights, entitlements, or obligations with respect to key laws intended to promote gender equality,” the authors write.The World Bank’s workIn its work, the World Bank assesses the gender dimensions of development within and across sectors in each country where it has active programs, and it uses Regional Gender Action Plans to lay out proposed directions to ensure that gender and inclusive development are better integrated into country and regional programming.Gender is also a special theme of the Bank’s $49.3 billion fund for the poorest, the International Development Association. Its Gender Action Plan, started in 2007, has boosted attention to innovative programs to promote women’s economic empowerment. And the Road Map for Gender Mainstreaming directs more of the Bank’s technical assistance, projects, and programs towards giving women better economic opportunities.The new focus group study adds to a body of knowledge that includes the World Development Report 2012 and suggests that when communities find ways to relax norms, men’s and women’s individual and collective sense of control over their futures can increase – and reinforce one another. Show Less -

New report finds that improvements in border administration and transport & telecommunications infrastructure and services could result in an up to 4.7% increase in global GDP, far outweighing pot... Show More +ential income gains from complete elimination of import tariffs.Governments should take a holistic approach that considers the entire supply chain, focusing on all policies that impact supply chain efficiency to improve national competitiveness.SME sector would witness increased trade with solutions to specific constraints that disproportionately affect smaller companies.Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, 23 January 2013 – Reducing supply chain barriers could increase global GDP and world trade much more than reducing all import tariffs, according to a new report released today by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with Bain & Company and the World Bank.Enabling Trade: Valuing Growth Opportunities finds that if all countries reduce supply chain barriers halfway to global best practice, global GDP could increase by 4.7% and world trade by 14.5%, far outweighing the benefits from the elimination of all import tariffs. In comparison, completely eliminating tariffs could increase global GDP by 0.7% and world trade by 10.1%. Even a less ambitious set of reforms that moves countries halfway to regional best practice could increase global GDP by 2.6% and world trade by 9.4%. Economic gains from reducing supply chain barriers are also more evenly distributed across countries than the gains associated with tariff elimination. Regions that stand to benefit in particular under these scenarios are sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia. Such large increases in GDP would be associated with positive effects on unemployment, potentially adding millions of jobs to the global workforce.According to the report, lowering supply chain barriers is effective because it eliminates resource waste and reduces costs to trading firms and, by extension, lowers prices to consumers and businesses. Supply chain barriers can result from inefficient customs and administrative procedures, complex regulation and weaknesses in infrastructure services, among many others. The supply chain is the network of activities involved in producing and getting a product to consumers, and spans the manufacturing process as well as transport and distribution services.Enabling Trade: Valuing Growth Opportunities was initiated by the Forum’s Global Agenda Councils on Logistics & Supply Chains and Global Trade & FDI. The report provides a wealth of information regarding how policies can create unnecessary supply chain costs and inefficiencies based on 18 case examples spanning multiple industries and regions. The case examples highlight that clusters of policies jointly impact supply chain performance; that a concerted approach is needed to cut across different policy domains; that there may be specific tipping points that need to be achieved for reductions in supply chain barriers to have a significant impact on trade; and that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) tend to face proportionally higher supply chain barriers and costs.The report recommends that governments create a focal point to coordinate and oversee all regulation that directly impacts supply chains; that public-private partnerships be established to undertake regular data collection, monitoring and analysis of factors affecting supply chain performance; and that governments pursue a more holistic, supply-chain-centred approach towards international trade negotiations to ensure that trade agreements have greater relevance for international business and do more to benefit consumers and households.“The Forum’s Enabling Trade programme has endeavoured to highlight the fundamental attributes that enable a country to facilitate trade,” said Børge Brende, Managing Director, World Economic Forum. “Through a vivid repository of case studies, which provide an on-the-ground view of everyday barriers that companies face along trade lanes, this report shows that removing barriers to supply chains can enhance economic competitiveness and generate significant welfare benefits and jobs for countries.”“The case studies show that countries can lose their competitive advantage in terms of factor costs, if the costs associated with their supply chain barriers are high,” said Mark Gottfredson, Partner, Bain & Company. “The lesson for companies is the importance of understanding supply chain barriers and how the associated costs and delays can erode other sourcing advantages. For example, a case study on the apparel industry illustrates how delays at the border, inconsistent application of regulations, and infrastructure issues completely offset significant labour cost advantages for many countries.”“Supply chain barriers are more significant impediments to trade than import tariffs,” said Bernard Hoekman, Director of the World Bank’s International Trade Department, who is also the Chair of the Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Logistics & Supply Chains. “Lowering these barriers will reduce costs for businesses, and help generate more jobs and economic opportunities for people.”Some examples from the 18 country and sector case studies in the report include the following:In Brazil, managing customs paperwork for exports of agricultural commodities can take 12 times longer than in the European Union (a full day versus a couple of hours).Poor quality infrastructure services can increase the input material costs of consumer goods by up to 200% in certain African countries.In Madagascar, supply chain barriers can account for about 4% of total revenues of a textile producer (through higher freight costs and increased inventories), eroding the benefits of duty-free access to export markets.Obtaining licenses and lack of coordination among regulatory agencies in the US lead to delays in up to 30% of chemical shipments for one company – each late shipment costs US$ 60,000 per day.In Russia, product testing and licensing in the computer sector can lead to high administrative costs and delay time-to-market anywhere from 10 days to eight weeks.Local content requirements, rule-of-origin restrictions and pilferage at the border, can increase costs by 6-9% of consumer technology products in the Middle East and North Africa.Eliminating supply chain barriers in the South East Asian rubber market could reduce carried inventories by 90 days, representing a 10% reduction in product cost.India’s Preferential Market Access regulation, which provides preference for locally produced high-tech products in government procurement, could increase costs by 10%, over the cost of imports.Adopting electronic documentation for the air cargo industry could yield US$ 12 billion in annual savings and prevent 70-80% of paperwork-related delays.Easing regulatory compliance of international trade that SMEs face when selling through the Internet could increase cross-border SME sales by 60-80%. 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This report gives 14 indicators that
describe a country's macro fiscal environment to
identify constraints or opportunities for health systems
financing. A country ... Show More +with a 10 percent unemployment rate
that has fallen from 15 percent may be in better shape than
one with an 8 percent unemployment rate that has risen from
4 percent. It is also important to benchmark to group
averages of countries in the same World Bank (WB) region and
income group. Show Less -

WASHINGTON, November 29, 2012 – The world cannot afford for high and volatile food prices to be the “new normal,” while millions of people continue to suffer from hunger and to die from malnutrition, ... Show More +the World Bank Group warned today.“A new norm of high prices seems to be consolidating,” said Otaviano Canuto, World Bank Group’s Vice President for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management. “The world cannot afford to be complacent to this trend while 870 million people still live in hunger and millions of children die every year from preventable diseases caused by malnutrition.”According to the latest edition of the World Bank Group’s Food Price Watch report, published quarterly, global food prices stabilized following last July’s record peak. In October, prices were 5 percent below that peak. Prices were driven down by fats and oils, with more modest declines in grains. Seasonal increase in supplies, the absence of panic policies, such as food export restrictions, and better expectations for the future are behind such trends, although markets remain tight in general.Nonetheless, prices remain at high levels – 7 percent higher than a year ago. Grains, in particular, are expensive. They are 12 percent above their levels 12 months before and very close to the all-time high of 2008. Maize, for instance, is 17 percent higher than in October 2011 and 10 percent above the record-high prices of February 2011, despite their decrease of 3 percent between August and October.“Although we haven’t seen a food crisis as the one of 2008, food security should remain a priority,” said Canuto. “We need additional efforts to strengthen nutrition programs, safety nets, and sustainable agriculture, especially when the right actions can bring about exceptional benefits.” According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and others, 870 million people live with chronic undernourishment, an unchanged figure since 2007-09, and behind the necessary improvement to achieve the hunger Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of hungry people by 2015. Furthermore, child malnutrition accounts for more than a third of the mortality burden of children under the age of five, and malnutrition during pregnancy for more than 20 percent of maternal mortality.Therefore, programs to improve nutrition, for instance, would multiply the benefits -- from improving cognitive development and learning; to contributing to the empowerment of women and maternal health; reducing the negative interaction of malnutrition and infectious diseases; and increasing economic growth.According to Food Price Watch, weather will determine food prices in the near future, along with other factors, such as oil prices and the extent of emerging export competition – all of which remain uncertain at this point. How the World Bank is helpingIn FY12, which ended June 30, new World Bank Group (WBG) commitments to agriculture and related sectors reached over $9 billion. This exceeded projected lending in the Bank’s Agriculture Action Plan, which foresaw an increase from an average of $4.1 billion annually in FY06-08 to $6.2-$8.3 billion annually in FY10-12. IBRD/IDA assistance in FY12 was the highest in 20 years.From July 2012 onwards the Bank’s emergency response to severe food price shocks in the poorest countries can draw on IDA16 resources, including those available through IDA’s Crisis Response Window (CRW), as well as undisbursed resources available under the recently approved Immediate Response Mechanism. For instance, in response to drought in the Horn of Africa, IDA is providing $1.8 billion, (including $250 million from the CRW), to save lives, improve social protection, and foster economic recovery and drought resilience.IFC has invested $1 billion in the Critical Commodities Finance Program, aimed to support trade in key agricultural and energy-related goods, to help reduce the risk of food and energy shortages, as well as improve food security for the world’s poorest.Additionally, IFC’s Agricultural Price Risk Mechanism (APRM) enables protection from volatile food prices for farmers, food producers, and consumers in developing countries.IFC’s Global Warehouse Finance Program allows famers to get needed financing quickly by borrowing against receipts they obtain for crop deliveries to warehouses.The Bank is supporting the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), set up by the WBG in April 2010 at G20’s request. Nine countries and the Gates Foundation have pledged about $1.3 billion, with $880.1 million received.The Global Food Price Crisis Response Program (GFRP) has reached 66 million people in 49 countries - through $1.6 billion in emergency support.The WBG is coordinating with UN agencies through the High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis and with non-governmental organizations.Supporting the Partnership for Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) to improve food market transparency and help governments make informed responses to global food price spikes.Advocacy for more investment in agriculture research–including through the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research (CGIAR) – and monitoring agricultural trade to identify potential food shortages.Supporting improved nutrition among vulnerable groups through community nutrition programs aimed at increasing use of health services and improving care giving. As part of its response to the food crisis, the Bank has supported the provision of some 2.3 million school meals every day to children in low income countries.The Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) framework for action to address under-nutrition was endorsed by over 100 partners, including the World Bank.Improving global collaboration in the generation and sharing of knowledge between agriculture, food security, and nutrition, through the SecureNutrition knowledge platform: www.securenutritionplatform.org Show Less -

New Studies Show Potential Impact of Programs for Sex Workers, People Who Inject Drugs, and Men Who Have Sex with MenWASHINGTON, November 28, 2012 – As the world prepares to commemorate World AIDS Day... Show More + on December 1, two new World Bank studies urge governments and their development partners to provide better prevention, care, and treatment services for sex workers and people who inject drugs as an important step toward ensuring a world free of AIDS.The studies are the second and third in a three-part series on key populations at higher risk in low- and middle-income countries. In June 2011, the World Bank and partners launched the first study, which focused on men who have sex with men.“In many countries, sex workers, people who inject drugs, and men who have sex with men remain marginalized in society and vulnerable to HIV,” said David Wilson, World Bank Global AIDS Program Director. “Even in countries with epidemics in the general population, these groups are disproportionately affected by the epidemic. Effective interventions not only protect members of these marginalized communities, but also make a major contribution to averting a wider epidemic.”Sex workers, people who inject drugs, and men who have sex with men are at significantly higher risk of HIV infection than other groups in low- and middle-income countries. According to a recently released UNAIDS report, among countries with generalized epidemics, HIV prevalence is consistently higher among sex workers in the capital city than in the general population, at around 23%. Around 3 million of the 16 million people worldwide who use drugs are living with HIV. HIV infection among men who have sex with men in capital cities is on average 13 times higher than in the general population.The World Bank, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health collaborated on the sex workers study, The Global HIV Epidemics among Sex Workers, which found that a community empowerment approach to HIV prevention, treatment, and care is cost-effective, with significant projected impact on HIV incidence among sex workers and transmission beyond the sex worker community.According to the study, globally, HIV disproportionately affected sex workers in low- and middle-income countries. The overall HIV prevalence among female sex workers was 11.8%, with the prevalence in Sub-Saharan Africa at 36.9%. Across all regions, prevalence among female sex workers was 13.5 times the overall HIV prevalence among the general population of women ages 15-49. Sex workers continue to face heightened social and structural vulnerabilities to HIV. The study emphasizes the central importance of adopting a rights-affirming, empowerment-based approach to scale up comprehensive HIV services, and addressing stigma, discrimination, and violence against sex workers. The World Bank, Futures Group, and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health study, The Global HIV Epidemics among People Who Inject Drugs, found that although HIV prevalence was significantly higher among people who inject drugs than in the general adult population, the availability of antiretroviral treatment and other key prevention interventions was generally inadequate.The researchers predicted that continuing to specifically target these groups with needle and syringe programs, medically assisted therapy and HIV counseling and testing, as well as increased access to antiretroviral treatment, could avert thousands of infections from 2012-2015, including 1,300 in Kenya, 4,130 in Pakistan, 1,570 in Thailand, and 3,900 in Ukraine. Interventions for people who inject drugs are cost-effective or highly cost-effective investment choices across the breadth of the global epidemic.“The ability to rapidly and cost-effectively intervene in HIV transmission with currently proven interventions holds the most promise among people who inject drugs worldwide,” said Farley R. Cleghorn, MD, MPH, Futures Chief Technical Officer and Team Leader for the study.The study, Global HIV Epidemics Among Men Who Have Sex with Men: Epidemiology, Prevention, Access to Care and Human Rights, found that achieving high rates of coverage of HIV prevention and treatment services among men who have sex with men had a significant positive impact on the overall trajectory of a country’s HIV epidemic. Fewer than one in ten men who have sex with men worldwide has access to basic HIV/AIDS prevention, care, and treatment services. The authors of that study recommended a comprehensive package of essential services, including risk-reduction counseling, distribution of condoms and other safe-sex measures, community-based prevention efforts, HIV testing, and increased use of antiretroviral therapy treatment. The report highlights the need for the decriminalization of the behavior of men who have sex with men, the institution of anti-homophobia policies, increased education of healthcare workers, and the reduction of stigma in healthcare situations. “Resources need to target the most effective interventions, based on sound evidence,” said Chris Beyrer MD, MPH, Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health and Human Rights. “This means focusing on some of the hardest-to-reach and most stigmatized populations, including sex workers, people who inject drugs, and men who have sex with men. The public health urgency to address these key populations is consistent with the human rights imperative to include those most in need of HIV prevention, treatment, and care.” Show Less -

DR. KIM: Thank you, all, so much for coming and welcome to the World Bank.As always, I have some very nice prepared remarks, and so I will give them out of respect for the people who prepared th... Show More +em, but I'm also going to talk a little bit about from personal experiences. Hundreds of millions of children and adults in Africa live at risk of disfigurement, impaired development, blindness, and even death from seven major preventable, neglected--so called neglected tropical diseases, includes river blindness, elephantiasis, trachoma, and various types of [? 00:37] [unclear] parasites. It's not that these diseases really have been neglected. It's the people who suffer from them who have been neglected. Protecting poor people from preventable diseases and from acute suffering remains a part of our mission to end poverty and [unclear] shared prosperity. The bronze statue in our atrium, the child leading a man who has lost his sight from river blindness, is a daily reminder of our mission, and for me it's the second organization that I've worked for that has that very statue in the middle of its consciousness. Five other statues exist including in Burkina Faso's capital and of course the World Health Organization capital in Geneva.River blindness is a debilitating disease, transmitted through flies that breed in river waters, as you know. The fight against this disease is where our efforts in the preventable, neglected tropical diseases began. This fight, supported by many organizations and partners including the World Health Organization, the World Bank is a true success story, and today over 80 million people a year in Africa regularly receive drugs donated by Merck to prevent river blindness. Protection again disease is not just an investment in health but an investment in the economy. As river blindness has been controlled in large parts of West Africa, families have been able to return to 25 million hectares of arable land with the capacity to grow enough crops to feed 17 million people. River blindness has also been eliminated in several endemic areas in Africa, such as transmission zones in Senegal and Mali. At the beginning of this year, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, several pharmaceutical companies, and many other partners, including some very active civil society organizations, united behind a common mission to control or eliminate the seven major preventable, neglected tropical diseases in endemic countries. I'm delighted that we at the World Bank are able to support the effort to tackle these diseases in a coordinated way. Tackling these diseases in a coordinated way in [unclear 02:50] Africa. It saves lives and money, and requires expanding lessons that we've learned from our efforts to eliminate river blindness. First, a simple community health system approach. And second, partnerships with pharmaceutical companies for the free supply of drugs. A key element of this extended effort is to strengthen community health systems in these endemic countries through national health strategies that aim to reach every citizen with good quality health services. We can bring about great change by working together efficiently. You know, I remember the very first time that this idea of donating drugs became to be, and it was actually in a video with Roy Vagelos of Merck, and Bill Fahey of, at that time [unclear 03:37] Carter Center by President Carter. And I'll never forget the conversation where President Roy Vagelos of Merck was asked directly, "You mean you will supply every person in the world who needs Mectizan with the drug forever?" And he said, "Yes, forever." Now, my understanding is that at first when the Merck folks about this they weren't very happy when he made that commitment, but I have to tell you, those of us in the public health world were simply blown away. I've since had the great pleasure of working very closely with Bill Fahey and also being measured [? 04:16] by him in a very substantial way. And just yesterday I was on the phone, a videoconference with Bill and with Mark Rosenberg, who now runs the Task Force for Global Health, which manages the Mectizan Donation Program. And I've also had the great, great honor of interacting quite a bit with Roy Vagelos, who continues his great work in trying to bring medicine and cures to the poorest people in the world. So I, mostly today, just want to thank everyone in this room for your effort to continue this extremely worthwhile fight. You know, I was involved in HIV and tuberculosis, malaria, much more high-profile diseases. But having spent so many years of my life actually seeing cases of elephantiasis, seeing cases of trachoma in places like Haiti, in three countries in Africa and all over the world, I understand very clearly the enormous morbidity, the enormous suffering that comes from these diseases, and I hope that through our joint efforts, we will one day look at these as no longer neglected tropical diseases. Thank you very much. Show Less -

Financial disclosure is a powerful anti-corruption toolWASHINGTON, November 8, 2012– Financial disclosure laws requiring public officials to file a statement of their assets, liabilities and interests... Show More + can make corruption easier to detect. However, a new World Bank database finds that although 78 percent of countries covered by the database have financial disclosure systems, only 36 percent systematically check public servants’ disclosures for irregularities and inconsistencies.To support countries in their fight against corruption, the World Bank is launching the Financial Disclosure Law Library to help policymakers and practitioners establish strong financial disclosure systems. The Library compiles over 1,000 laws and regulations on financial disclosure and restrictions on public officials’ activities from 176 countries.Financial disclosure by public officials provides law enforcement with information and evidence for the prevention, investigation and prosecution of corruption, illicit enrichment and tax crimes. It also gives citizens the information they need to hold public officials accountable for their actions.The Library shows that not all public officials are obligated to declare their assets and interests. High-level officials are generally included; 93 percent of covered countries require disclosure for cabinet members, 91 percent for Members of Parliament and 62 percent for high-ranking prosecutors. However, only 43 percent of countries provide the public with open access to public officials’ financial disclosures.“Financial disclosure systems make it harder for corrupt officials to hide their criminal activities or ill-gotten wealth,” said Jean Pesme, Manager of Financial Market Integrity at the World Bank. “Civil society and corruption fighters should back the G20’s call for asset disclosure systems, because they can be an effective tool for bringing thieving public servants to justice.”A World Bank analysis published earlier this year, Using Asset Disclosure for Identifying Politically Exposed Persons, noted that as much as 93 percent of countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have disclosure systems, while the percentage drops to 53 percent in Middle East and Northern African countries. While significant variations in implementation and access exist across the world’s financial disclosure systems, stakeholders agree that such systems are essential.“Financial Disclosure is key in the fight against corruption,” says Navil Campos Paniagua, Manager, Complaints and Investigations Area, General Comptroller of the Republic of Costa Rica. “Until now, countries have been unaware of each other’s efforts when it comes to asset disclosure laws. The World Bank law library will certainly help practitioners and policymakers from different countries learn from one another and boost financial disclosure in their own countries.” The World Bank’s work in Financial Market Integrity supports transparent and inclusive financial systems, and the fight against illicit financial flows.The library can be accessed at http://publicofficialsfinancialdisclosure.worldbank.org/fdl/ Show Less -

WASHINGTON, November 2, 2012 – The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors has endorsed a move that will make the Bank’s original financing instrument more effective and clear for governments, staff... Show More +, and civil society organizations, the Bank announced today. The Bank has consolidated the policies and procedures governing Investment Financing, the main lending vehicle available to clients to support specific investments ranging from infrastructure to social safety nets to judicial reform. Investment Finance was the Bank’s original financing instrument for making loans for post-World War II reconstruction in Europe in the late 1940s. Over time, the lending policy has evolved, resulting in a maze of 30-some policy and procedure statements that have now been consolidated into a single coherent policy. The critical policies of procurement and environmental and social safeguards are on a separate track and are now undergoing public consultations. “This is part of a larger effort to modernize the Bank and make it more focused on results and solutions; less bureaucratic and more accountable to our clients, shareholders and the beneficiaries of Bank investments,” said Managing Director, Caroline Anstey. The new policy retains the content of the previous operational policy and procedure statements, restating them in a way that is clear to clients, staff, and civil society. “Clear policies are the foundation of accountability,” said Joachim von Amsberg, Vice President for Operational Policy and Country Services. “Consolidating our Investment Lending Policy is an important step to make this instrument more effective for the Bank’s range of clients. This effort will help our clients and staff focus more on problem solving, implementation, and delivering results – and less on bureaucracy.”While largely a consolidation effort, the new policy introduces a few changes to better respond to client needs. One of the key changes is extending the rapid response option used when countries face natural disasters or conflict to small states and fragile countries, as recommended in the 2011 World Development Report on fragility and conflict. Another change relates to how economic analysis is done that will maintain the mandatory nature and rigor of the analysis while taking into account the country and sectoral considerations.“Economic analysis remains a top priority of the Bank. It is critical to provide a solid analytical base,” said Aloysius Ordu, Director for Operations Policy and Quality. The new policy will go into effect in 2013.More information is available at www.worldbank.org/investmentlending Show Less -

WASHINGTON, October 24, 2012 –A new World Bank report says that Africa’s farmers can potentially grow enough food to feed the continent and avert future food crises if countries remove cross-border re... Show More +strictions on the food trade within the region. According to the Bank, the continent would also generate an extra US$20 billion in yearly earnings if African leaders can agree to dismantle trade barriers that blunt more regional dynamism. The report was released on the eve of an African Union (AU) ministerial summit in Addis Ababa on agriculture and trade.With as many as 19 million people living with the threat of hunger and malnutrition in West Africa’s Sahel region, the Bank report urges African leaders to improve trade so that food can move more freely between countries and from fertile areas to those where communities are suffering food shortages. The World Bank expects demand for food in Africa to double by the year 2020 as people increasingly leave the countryside and move to the continent’s cities. According to the new report―Africa Can Help Feed Africa: Removing barriers to regional trade in food staples ― rapid urbanization will challenge the ability of farmers to ship their cereals and other foods to consumers when the nearest trade market is just across a national border. Countries south of the Sahara, for example, could significantly boost their food trade over the next several years to manage the deadly impact of worsening drought, rising food prices, rapid population growth, and volatile weather patterns. With many African farmers effectively cut off from the high-yield seeds, and the affordable fertilizers and pesticides needed to expand their crop production, the continent has turned to foreign imports to meet its growing needs in staple foods.“Africa has the ability to grow and deliver good quality food to put on the dinner tables of the continent’s families,” said Makhtar Diop, World Bank Vice President for Africa. “However, this potential is not being realized because farmers face more trade barriers in getting their food to market than anywhere else in the world. Too often borders get in the way of getting food to homes and communities which are struggling with too little to eat.”The new report suggests that if the continent’s leaders can embrace more dynamic inter-regional trade, Africa’s farmers, the majority of whom are women, could potentially meet the continent’s rising demand and benefit from a major growth opportunity. It would also create more jobs in services such as distribution, while reducing poverty and cutting back on expensive food imports. Africa’s production of staple foods is worth at least US$50 billion a year.Moreover, the new report notes that only five percent of all cereals imported by African countries come from other African countries while huge tracts of fertile land, around 400 million hectares, remain uncultivated and yields remain a fraction of those obtained by farmers elsewhere in the world.Poor roads and high transport costs blunt progress Transport cartels are still common across Africa, and the incentives to invest in modern trucks and logistics are weak. The World Bank report suggests that countries in West Africa in particular could halve their transport costs within 10 years if they adopted policy reforms that spurred more competition within the region. Unpredictable trade policies a liabilityOther obstacles to greater African trade in food staples include export and import bans, variable import tariffs and quotas, restrictive rules of origin, and price controls. Often devised with little public scrutiny, these policies are then poorly communicated to traders and officials. This process in turn promotes confusion at border crossings, limits greater regional trade, creates uncertain market conditions, and contributes to food price volatility. Establishing a competitive market will enhance food distribution networksA competitive food market will help poor people most, the report notes. For example, poor people in the slums of Nairobi pay more for their maize, rice, and other staple food than wealthy people pay for the same products in local supermarkets. The report underlines the importance of food distribution networks which in many countries fail to benefit poor farmers and poor consumers. “The key challenge for the continent is how to create a competitive environment in which governments embrace credible and stable policies that encourage private investors and businesses to boost food production across the region, so that farmers get the capital, the seeds, and the machinery they need to become more efficient, and families get enough good food at the right price.” said Paul Brenton, World Bank’s Lead Economist for Africa and principal author of the report. World Bank Group support for trade and agriculture in sub-Saharan AfricaThe World Bank is recognized as a key source of knowledge on trade policy issues, analysis and investments for trade-related infrastructure at the country level. The institution’s agriculture support for Africa has grown significantly over the past decade. Concessional lending totaled US$1.07 billion in fiscal year 12 (July 11-June 12): a fourfold increase from FY03. The share of trade-related lending in total Bank lending has also grown from an average of two percent in FY03 to five percent in FY12. New trade-related commitments in FY13 are expected to increase to US$3 billion, 70 percent of which will go to Africa. Since 2008, World Bank Group lending for agriculture and related sectors in sub-Saharan Africa total approximately US$5.4 billion. Show Less -

LONDON, October 24, 2012 - The World Bank-led Global Gas Flaring Reduction (GGFR) partnership today called on oil producers, both countries and companies, to reduce flaring of natural gas associated w... Show More +ith oil production by 30% by 2017. This would reduce flaring from 140 bcm of gas flared in 2011 to 100 bcm by end of 2017, for a reduction in CO2 emissions equivalent to taking 60 million cars off the road."A 30% cut in five years is a realistic goal,” said Rachel Kyte, the Bank’s Vice President for Sustainable Development. “Given the need for energy in so many countries—one in five people on the planet are without electricity—we need to raise our ambition. We simply cannot afford to waste this gas anymore.”The GGFR partnership has already helped reduce gas flaring by 20%, from 172 billion cubic meters in 2005 to 140 bcm in 2011. This cut translates into the prevention of 274 million tons of CO2 emissions, roughly equivalent to taking 52 million cars off the road. Ms. Kyte made her remarks at a Global Forum of 200 representatives of GGFR partners hosted by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).The Forum aims to review progress since the partnership was launched at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg.The GGFR partners have reduced flaring by establishing a global standard for gas flaring reduction, sharing best practices on regulation and technology deployment, and by identifying and supporting gas utilization projects. In addition to taking stock of progress, GGFR partners are planning for the next phase of work. They have agreed to deepen their collaboration to reduce gas flaring by working along the whole gas value chain, both upstream and downstream. GGFR partners will focus on helping countries develop gas infrastructure and gas markets, as a way of expanding access to cleaner electricity and cooking fuels. “To increase flaring reduction, countries and companies need to work together to nurture viable gas markets and build adequate gas infrastructure. Partners can seize business opportunities while also reducing emissions and expanding access to modern energy—a key goal of the Sustainable Energy for All initiative,” said Ms Kyte.The Sustainable Energy for All initiative, launched by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and supported by the World Bank Group, calls on governments, businesses and civil society to achieve three goals by 2030, namely universal access to energy, including electricity and clean cooking fuels; double the renewable share of power from 15% to 30% of the global mix; and double the energy efficiency improvement rate.About GGFRThe GGFR partnership, a public-private initiative led by the World Bank, facilitates and supports national efforts to use currently flared gas. It does this by promoting effective regulatory frameworks and tackling the constraints on gas utilization, such as insufficient infrastructure and poor access to local and international energy markets, particularly in developing countries. Show Less -

This tenth edition of Doing Business
sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local
entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business
when comply... Show More +ing with relevant regulations. It measures and
tracks changes in regulations affecting eleven areas in the
life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with
construction permits, getting electricity, registering
property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying
taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts,
resolving insolvency and employing workers. Doing Business
presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and
the protection of property rights that can be compared
across 185 economies, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, over
time. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes
and identify what reforms have worked, where and why. This
economy profile presents the Doing Business indicators for
Togo. To allow useful comparison, it also provides data for
other selected economies (comparator economies) for each
indicator. The data in this report are current as of June 1,
2012 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover
the period January - December 2011). Show Less -

Washington, D.C., October 23, 2012—Local entrepreneurs in developing countries are finding it easier to do business than at any time in the last 10 years, highlighting the significant progress that ha... Show More +s been made in improving business regulatory practices across the globe, according to a new report released today by the World Bank and IFC.The report, Doing Business 2013: Smarter Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises, marks the 10th edition of the Doing Business series. Over the past decade, these reports have recorded nearly 2,000 regulatory reforms implemented by 180 economies. The reforms have yielded major benefits for local entrepreneurs across the globe. For example:Since 2005, the average time to start a business has fallen from 50 days to 30—and in low-income economies the average has been reduced by half.In the past eight years, the average time to transfer property fell by 35 days, from 90 to 55, and the average cost by 1.2 percentage points—from 7.1 percent of the property value to 5.9 percent.In the past eight years, improvements to simplify tax compliance have reduced the time required annually to comply with the three major taxes measured (profit, labor, and consumption taxes) by 54 hours on average.“Over the years, governments have made important strides to improve their business regulatory environment and to narrow the gap with global best practices,” said Augusto Lopez-Claros, Director, Global Indicators and Analysis, World Bank Group. “While the reforms we measure provide only a partial picture of an economy’s business climate, they are crucial for key economic outcomes such as faster job growth and new business creation.”In the past year alone, 108 economies implemented 201 regulatory reforms that made it easier for local entrepreneurs to do business, the report found. Eastern Europe and Central Asia had the largest share of economies implementing regulatory reforms—with 88 percent reforming in at least one of the areas measured by Doing Business. European economies in fiscal distress are working to improve business regulation as part of an effort to establish a stronger foundation for long-term growth, the report found.Singapore topped the global ranking on the ease of doing business for the seventh consecutive year. Joining it on the list of the top 10 economies with the most business-friendly regulation were Hong Kong SAR, China; New Zealand; the United States; Denmark; Norway; the United Kingdom; the Republic of Korea; Georgia; and Australia.Topping the list of economies that registered the biggest improvements in the ease of doing business over the last year were Poland, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Burundi, Costa Rica, Mongolia, Greece, Serbia, and Kazakhstan. About the Doing Business report series Doing Business analyzes regulations that apply to an economy’s businesses during their life cycle, including start-up and operations, trading across borders, paying taxes, and protecting investors. The aggregate ease of doing business rankings are based on 10 indicators and cover 185 economies. Doing Business does not measure all aspects of the business environment that matter to firms and investors. For example, it does not measure the quality of fiscal management, other aspects of macroeconomic stability, the level of skills in the labor force, or the resilience of financial systems. Its findings have stimulated policy debates worldwide and enabled a growing body of research on how firm-level regulation relates to economic outcomes across economies. This year’s report marks the 10th edition of the global Doing Business report series. For more information about the Doing Business report series, please visit www.doingbusiness.org. Join us on Facebook. About the World Bank GroupThe World Bank Group is one of the world’s largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries. It comprises five closely associated institutions: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA), which together form the World Bank; the International Finance Corporation (IFC); the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA); and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Each institution plays a distinct role in the mission to fight poverty and improve living standards for people in the developing world. For more information, please visit www.worldbank.org, www.miga.org, and www.ifc.org. Show Less -

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23, 2012–Most economies are recovering from the sharp drops in new firm registration triggered by the 2008 global financial crisis—an improvement that may have been bolstered by gover... Show More +nment reforms, according to new World Bank data released today. In 2011, more than 60 percent of the world’s economies saw a faster pace of new firm registration than in the year before. That is almost double the 2009 rate of 34 percent, although it still lags behind the 2007 rate of 75 percent, according to the World Bank Group Entrepreneurship Database, which is updated every two years.Reforms that significantly reduce the time, cost, days and number of steps required to start a business—generally over a 50 percent reduction in any given measure recorded by the World Bank Group’s Doing Business series—have a real and sustainable impact on new firm registration, according to an analysis by economists in the World Bank’s Development Research Group.For example, Rwanda registered 4,500 new firms in 2011, up from 1,136 in 2008. This was in the wake of 2009 reforms that, among other things, eliminated six steps to register a business and shortened the process time from 14 to three days.“The new data offer policymakers and researchers new insights into global trends in formal entrepreneurship, which will lead to more evidence-based decisions,” said Kaushik Basu, the World Bank’s chief economist and senior vice president. The Entrepreneurship Database is based on the only global survey of formal entrepreneurship that can be compared across countries and over time. Data on new firm registration are collected directly from business registries in 130 economies. The database is funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the World Bank Group.Rates of new firm registration differ significantly from country to country, reflecting variations in their performance of Doing Business indicators. For every 1,000 working-age adults, four new limited-liability companies are registered in high-income economies. That compares with just one in developing countries.“Countries improve the most when the reforms are large and broad. That is especially true in economies with a relatively weaker business environment,” said Leora Klapper, a lead economist at the World Bank’s Development Research Group. “If policymakers are willing to make significant reforms and make it easier for entrepreneurs to formally register their business, then there is real potential to significantly increase new firm registration,” said Klapper, who co-authored the research paper with Inessa Love, an associate professor at the University of Hawaii. For more information and to access the World Bank Entrepreneurship Database, please visit: http://www.doingbusiness.org/entrepreneurship About the Kauffman FoundationThe Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is a private nonpartisan foundation that works to harness the power of entrepreneurship and innovation to grow economies and improve human welfare. For more information, visit www.kauffman.org, and follow the Foundation on www.twitter.com/kauffmanfdn and www.facebook.com/kauffmanfdnAbout the World Bank GroupThe World Bank Group is one of the world’s largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries. It comprises five closely associated institutions: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA), which together form the World Bank; the International Finance Corporation (IFC); the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA); and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Each institution plays a distinct role in the mission to fight poverty and improve living standards for people in the developing world. For more information, please visit www.worldbank.org, www.miga.org, and www.ifc.org. Show Less -

WASHINGTON— At the IMF-World Bank Annual meetings in Tokyo, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the World Bank Integrity Vice Preside... Show More +ncy. Both organizations agreed to share information and undertake joint or parallel investigations to prevent, detect, disrupt and substantiate fraud and corruption in development projects where both the United Kingdom and the World Bank Group have joint interests."The World Bank’s partnership with a major development player such as DFID will expand our existing cooperation in financing projects to mitigating the risks of fraud and corruption. One area where we have demonstrated significant success is joint forensic audits that helped identify, quantify and confront such risks in several projects," said Leonard McCarthy, World Bank Integrity Vice President. “This MoU is a critical step in advancing our collective efforts to protect taxpayers money and ensure it is dedicated to projects that can offer poor communities better services and economic opportunities.”Both organizations will develop new methodologies and instruments to prevent fraud and corruption in large-scale projects and support governance and anti-corruption efforts of recipient governments. "DFID recognizes the valuable contribution that the World Bank is making to help developing countries tackle corruption. I am equally delighted to sign this MOU which marks a further step in strengthening cooperation between DFID and the Bank," said Mr. Mark Lowcock, Permanent Secretary, Department for International Development. Show Less -